Streamlining New Item Requests in Oracle Fusion SCM: A Practical Guide
If you’ve ever worked with a product catalog in a fast-moving industry, you know that getting a new item into the system quickly and correctly matters far more than it might seem at first glance. In Oracle Fusion SCM, the New Item Request (NIR) feature offers a structured, collaborative way to handle this — and in this post, we’ll walk through exactly how it works, who it’s for, and what business value it delivers.
The Challenge: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Structure
Let’s paint a picture. You’re working with a Telecommunications Company. New products come in throughout the year, and it’s the marketing team who typically hears about them first. By the time an item gets the green light for sale, the clock is already ticking — and yet, item creation in the system often takes far longer than it should.
This might sound like a minor inconvenience, but in Oracle Fusion Product Information Management (PIM), an item record is anything but trivial. It touches accounting setup, costing information, reporting, project tracking, and more. Get it wrong, and the ripple effects cascade across every downstream process. Get it done slowly, and you risk delays across the entire supply chain.
The Legacy Reality: Custom Forms and Costly Workarounds
Until relatively recently, the native New Item Request feature in Oracle Fusion wasn’t collaborative enough out of the box to satisfy most enterprise requirements. A significant number of organisations — particularly those migrating from Oracle R12 or going live on Fusion in its earlier releases — responded by building custom simplified item creation forms, typically combined with:
- Custom approval workflows built in BPEL, SOA, or third-party tools like ServiceNow or Jira
- Custom integrations via REST/SOAP APIs or FBDI to push approved item data into Oracle Fusion PIM
- Additional development effort for validations, error handling, and user notifications
This approach worked — but it came at a price. Conservative industry estimates put the cost of building and maintaining such a custom solution at $50,000 to $150,000 USD in initial development, with annual maintenance running at 15–20% of that figure. For larger enterprises with complex workflows, these numbers climb significantly higher.
The matured New Item Request feature effectively makes this custom investment redundant for most use cases — and that is itself a powerful business case.
From Oracle R12 to Oracle Fusion: What Changed?
For those already in the industry, understanding how this feature evolved is one of the most compelling parts of the story.
In Oracle R12 (EBS), item creation was largely a manual, single-user process. An items administrator would create the item in the Item Master, while collaboration was handled informally — through emails, spreadsheets, and verbal handoffs. There was no native structured workflow to route the item through multiple stakeholders in sequence without heavy customisation.
In Oracle Fusion Cloud, the New Item Request introduces a formalised, configurable workflow natively built into the product. The key evolutions include:
Role-based contribution
Different users can own different sections of the item definition — something that required heavy customisation in R12.
Built-in, optional approval routing
Configurable approval workflows replace the need for external sign-off processes entirely.
Full audit trail and visibility
Every action in the workflow is tracked natively, providing the transparency that R12 lacked out of the box.
Native Fusion integration
The item record created through this process is immediately connected to Finance, Procurement, Projects, and Supply Chain — no manual data entry across modules required.
Who Is This For?
Reduces implementation risk by standardising a process often left to chance. Gives a repeatable, auditable framework that scales with the business.
Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain teams each contribute what they know, when they need to. No more bottlenecks waiting for a single data entry person.
Protects data integrity and accelerates time to revenue. A poorly set up item affects your financials, reporting, and customer experience.
The Solution: A Collaborative Item Creation Workflow
Oracle Fusion Product Management is designed with this complexity in mind. Rather than placing the entire burden on one person, the system allows multiple stakeholders to contribute to an item’s definition at different stages — each bringing their expertise to the table. Here’s how it works in practice for our Telecommunications Company:
Marketing Officer kicks things off
As the first to know about a new product, the Marketing Officer initiates the New Item Request. A standardised item code convention can be established company-wide to ensure consistency from day one.
The baton is passed
Once the initial details are entered, other team members — from Finance to Supply Chain to Product Management — step in to review, update, and complete the remaining specifications. Each stakeholder contributes without duplicating effort.
Approval: optional but available
Not every organisation needs a formal sign-off process. Stakeholder involvement is built into the item definition itself — collaboration happens naturally. If a formal approval workflow is required, Oracle Fusion supports this too. It’s simply a matter of configuration.
High-Level Setup Steps
The good news is that the New Item Request feature does not require custom development — it is configured, not built. Here is a high-level overview of what the setup involves:
Define the Item Class and Attribute Groups
Set up the item class hierarchy and assign the relevant attribute groups that different stakeholder roles will be responsible for completing.
Configure the New Item Request Type
In the Product Management setup, define the NIR type, including the description, number generation and whether approval is required.
Assign Roles and Stakeholders
Map specific attribute groups or item sections to the relevant roles (e.g., Marketing Officer, Finance Analyst, Supply Chain Coordinator). This determines who sees what and who is responsible for completing which part of the item definition.
Set Up the Workflow and Notifications
Configure the sequence in which stakeholders are notified and tasked. BPM (Business Process Management) workflows in Oracle handle the routing, ensuring each person is prompted at the right time.
Configure Approval (Optional)
If a formal approval process is required, set up approval rules within the BPM workflow — including approver hierarchy, escalation rules, and timeout actions.
Test and Validate End-to-End
Run through the full NIR lifecycle in a test environment — from item request initiation to final activation — verifying that all notifications fire, all roles have access to the right fields, and the item is correctly activated in the Item Master upon completion.
Measuring Success: KPIs with Benchmarks
A structured New Item Request process should produce measurable improvements across operations, data quality, and business impact. Here are the key metrics — with realistic baselines based on common enterprise experience and targets achievable within 6 to 12 months of go-live.
Operational KPIs
| KPI | Baseline | Target | Expected Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. time to create & activate a new item | 5–10 business days | 1–2 business days | 60–80% reduction |
| Item creation backlog size | 20–50 items (100+ at peak) | Fewer than 5 items | Near-zero steady state |
| Incomplete / inactive item records | 15–30% of catalog | Below 5% | ~80% improvement |
Data Quality KPIs
| KPI | Baseline | Target | Expected Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Items with all mandatory attributes populated | 65–75% compliance | 95–100% | ~30% improvement |
| Duplicate item records | 5–12% of catalog | Below 1% | ~90% reduction |
| Transaction errors on new items (first 90 days) | 8–15% error rate | Below 2% | ~85% reduction |
Business Impact KPIs
| KPI | Baseline | Target | Expected Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time from item approval to availability for sale | 7–15 business days | 2–3 business days | 70–80% reduction |
| New product launches delayed by system setup | 20–35% of launches | Below 5% | ~85% reduction |
| Post-creation rework tickets per item | 3–5 tickets | Fewer than 1 | 70–80% reduction |
Governance & Compliance KPIs
| KPI | Baseline | Target | Expected Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Items created through formal workflow | 50–70% | 90–95% | Full governance coverage |
| Audit compliance on item creation | 40–60% documented | 100% | Full auditability |
| Avg. stakeholders contributing per item | 1–2 people | 3–5 people | Cross-functional coverage |
The Cost Avoidance Argument
For organisations currently maintaining a custom item creation solution, adopting the native New Item Request workflow delivers immediate cost avoidance alongside operational gains.
The Bottom Line
A well-structured New Item Request process isn’t just about speed — it’s about accuracy, accountability, and consistency. By defining clear roles in the item creation workflow, companies ensure that every new product enters the system correctly, completely, and without unnecessary delays.
Whether you’re implementing Oracle Fusion SCM for the first time, migrating from R12, or looking to decommission a costly custom solution, mapping the New Item Request feature to your organisation’s structure is one of the highest-ROI steps you can take in your Product Information Management journey.
Ready to Get Started?
Whether you’re assessing the feature for the first time or ready to configure it for your business, the set up document could be helpful.
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